


don't worry it's okay when you worry it's okay

by painting



Series: c cameron miller [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painting/pseuds/painting
Summary: Is it acceptable when your untamed abilities act out of turn, so long as they get you out of trouble?





	1. uber pool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for brief angry language. stay safe people!!

Cameron's first ever experience with road rage was in front of two complete strangers in a west coast city he'd had all of thirteen hours to acquaint himself with, during the beginning of a four-day retreat for a conference he hadn't applied for and been selected to attend anyway. He was warm and distracted from travel, his nerves still shot from presenting research at a panel per his professor not even an hour before.

(It had gone just so perfectly fine, but that meant they were having him back again the next morning to do it to a brand new group of academics that Cameron wasn't particularly interested in speaking with.)

To get back to the hotel, he'd opted for one of those ride-sharing services — the kind that took a little longer but cost half as much because you were carpooling with someone you'd never met. The teenager sitting at the opposite side of the backseat seemed disinterested in the trip, wearing earbuds and a blank expression as she scrolled through some sort of feed on her phone like an aloof and masterful cab riding veteran.

Unfamiliar with taxi carpool etiquette but impressively skilled when it came to social adaptation, Cameron decided to pull out his own phone and do the same. He was just reaching into his pocket, excited to catch up on texts he missed during the panel, when the driver leaned on the steering wheel, rolled down his window and shouted a ribbon of curses into the street.

The volume was startling, but Cameron assumed that after his driver called the person driving the other car a "motherfucker" for the third time, that would be the end of the episode. From what he understood, someone had cut the driver off while trying to turn left at a stoplight, probably out of a lack of either consideration or attention. That sort of thing had happened to Cameron before, too; five way intersections were tricky, and a short, customary outburst was appropriate.

But the driver's excitement didn't stop there.

Next, he transitioned from practically lying down on the horn to pressing it so fast that it was almost rhythmic, the kind of novelty beat Cameron might try to sing along to and anonymously sell to Audiomack if it weren't for his dangerous nightmare-weapon of a voice. The driver himself seemed to be doing a good job of that, though, sort of. His slew of fuck-word insults over the constant, aggressive _beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-BEEEEP_ of the horn almost sounded like one of those rap demos that Cameron remembered his classmates handing out on CDs during high school. He would have loved it if he didn't feel like his life was absolutely certainly in danger.

He didn't know exactly how to react to someone else's outrage, especially as one of the only two people to be present while it was happening. The path of least resistance seemed to be to stare straight ahead out of the front window and act like he was used to this behavior from all of his cab drivers, despite this being the first taxi Cameron had ever taken in his life. They could all be like this, for all he knew. He made a mental note to do some research and avoid them more carefully once he got back to his own car in D.C.

Still, a part of Cameron wanted to side with one of two extremes — either get fake-pissed off to match the driver so he felt like Cameron was on his side and didn't take any anger out on him, or try to smooth things out and calm him down so he didn't intentionally run into the other car and kill all three of them instantly.

Because by then, the driver had gone off-route in order to closely follow the car that had cut him off.

Cameron's gaze flickered to the other passenger just long enough to see that she'd looked up from her phone, her expression blank and fingers twitching.

"Uh," she said pointedly, throwing her voice forward. "You're going the wrong—"

"Mother _fucking_ idiot! Motherfucker! You pull over, asshole! You motherfucker! Pull over!" the driver interrupted, ignoring her as he continued to _beep-beep-beep-beep-beep_ ferociously.

Underneath the part of him that feared for his life, Cameron felt some secondhand embarrassment for the driver and wondered if he got like this every time someone cut him off, or if there was something else going on outside of the cab-driving part of his world that might have provoked him to lose his cool. Cameron doubted the driver would even hear him if he'd asked, but he knew better to open his mouth regardless.

The car ahead of them ran a red light. The driver did the same, and the car nearly tipped as he made a sharp right turn to stay on its tail. Cameron thought about calling 911, surprised that nobody else on the road had done that already.

When the other car's brake lights went on as it approached a crosswalk, the cab driver unlocked their doors and didn't slow down. Cameron felt a deeper panic bloom in his stomach and only managed to choke out the word, " _Hey—!_ " before the driver's shouting ceased abruptly, as though someone had flipped a switch. He smoothly decreased his speed and pulled off to the curb.

He made eye contact with Cameron in the rear view mirror, his eyebrows furrowed with concern. Cameron felt a different, conditioned form of anxiety taking over.

"Man, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" he asked. His voice was a whole octave lower when he wasn't screaming, gentle and pleasant and understandably quite hoarse. "I'm so sorry."

"I, um," Cameron said, though what he really wanted to say was _Jesus Christ_ or _oh no_ or  _You can just let me out here it's fine I'll walk_.

"What the hell?!" demanded Cameron's seatmate. "You almost killed us! What is _wrong_ with you? I want a lot more than sorry. Seriously. You should have your license taken away!"

For the second time during their very brief trip, the cab driver ignored her.

"Just _look_ at you," he said to Cameron, adjusting the mirror to get a better look at him. "You're so pale. I'm sorry if I scared you. I was seeing red, I don't know what came over me. The other driver broke the law, it was so dangerous, and I… saw red. I was seeing just red, red, red…!"

"The _other_ driver?" said the shellshocked teenager. She unlocked her phone and started typing something. "You shouldn't be driving. You should _not_ be working this job. I'm reporting this."

Rightfully so, Cameron thought. Responsible.

"Thank you for being so patient with me," the driver said. "You poor young man. I am so sorry. I'll take you to your destination right now. The Four Seasons on Stevenson, right?"

Cameron cleared his throat and said, "Yeah."

"My stop was supposed to be next. Hello? My stop was supposed to be next. I'm noting that in my report too."

"You want me to turn on some music, man? Calm your nerves. What do you like?"

Cameron's seatmate narrowed her eyes at him, and he guessed that she'd just realized what was going on. Great. Excellent. Her thumbs began typing faster.

"Oh, uh, anything," Cameron said, trying his best to stay neutral and calm and diplomatic and not take advantage of the driver's involuntary, temporary infatuation. "Anything's fine. Thank you."

"You got it, man," the driver told him just before switching on a power pop station that Cameron didn't mind and putting the car back into drive.

Being back in motion was a little nerve-wracking at first, and Cameron had no idea whether the driver would switch right back into the enraged version of himself once Cameron's mistake-charm wore off. He had so little experience using it that the whole ordeal was still unpredictable, and it seemed to affect everyone differently. This time it seemed to be concentrated on the driver only, and Cameron didn't know if it was because he'd directed all of his attention on stopping him, or maybe because his seatmate had some sort of immunity, or maybe it was an age thing, or a gender thing, or even a sexuality thing, or so on or so forth. He'd had so little practice that there was just no telling.

After a few streets of Cameron's useless pondering, the young woman looked him in the eye and held her phone up to his face. He gave his eyes a few seconds to focus.

The screen displayed a text document on a notepad app that Cameron didn't recognize, written in one of those fonts that was supposed to look like handwriting. There was a huge block of text taking up three quarters of the screen, and Cameron skimmed the beginning before realizing that it was supposed to be a report of the road rage incident, probably a first draft meant to be edited later and sent to the company's headquarters.

He wanted to read the whole thing, as anyone with a single curious bone in their body would, but he knew she was watching him so he skipped to the isolated line at the bottom.

It declared,  _DOWN HERE: I KNOW YOURE A SIREN!_

Cameron frowned and looked back up at her.

"You're not supposed to do that," she said, her voice low and confident under the music. Cameron tried not to grimace.

Although it had arguably saved their lives, or at the very least made everyone safer, Cameron's spell hadn't been cast on purpose — he hadn't even planned out what he was going to say beyond "hey" when he'd spoken his initial protest. Still, there was an unspoken ethical guideline for people whose abilities included hypnotizing others into fondness against their will; that is, that they shouldn't do it unless necessary for survival or as a trick at a magic show. For as much trouble Cameron had with controlling his voice, the whole ordeal became even harder with the reminder that any expressive outburst of his own might kick it into gear.

Despite his intentions, all Cameron had to say for himself was, "I know."

Once he broke eye contact, Cameron went right back to staring straight ahead as he thought about the thirteen hours he had to spend between that very moment and a second round of public speaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cameron: *saves the day*  
> cameron: omg. i'm a monster


	2. office hours

It took a case of laryngitis for Cameron to finally confirm that his Siren voice had nothing to do with his throat.

The whole thing happened near what he hoped was the end of one of those colds that headed straight for his chest just two days in and settled there for almost a week following. He'd just spent what felt like an eternity coughing with a ferocity that was loud enough to bother his neighbors, and it left his chest and throat feeling itchy and dry and sore with an amplified sharpness every time he dared to inhale. Of course he'd lost his voice.

But he stayed home several days the week before and had shut himself inside for most of the weekend, and it was the combination of responsibility-guilt and cabin fever that pushed him right out the door on Monday morning.

After arriving to his first lecture, Cameron camped out in his usual seat near the back with a stash of cough drops that were just barely working. He realized he'd forgotten a pen, having apparently lost his mind to the stress and exhaustion of illness, so he set his laptop on the desk with the intention of opening a word processor and dutifully taking notes.

As it goes, he ended up getting distracted enough for his professor to just barely snag his attention when she raised her voice and asked, "Can we get some insight on the reason Eastern alchemy rise and fell so quickly as a monopoly in the West?"

She made eye contact with Cameron, who was startled enough to not have thought to follow the rest of the class in casting his eyes downward to communicate that he wasn't up for participating in a class discussion. Instead, though, he felt his eyebrows go up in surprise when she began to zero in on him, which of course must have made him the easiest target she'd ever had. He was done for.

His professor nodded at him so he wouldn't have to point at himself to make sure he really was up to bat.

It was due to a shift in the religious zeitgeist, Cameron was almost certain, but all he could manage to croak out was, "The religious…" in a voice so faded and hoarse that it barely sounded like his own before it dwindled out completely. He cleared his throat, which proved to be useless, and then elected to duck down into his arm to cough in hopes that it might give his vocal cords enough steam to finish answering the question.

"Wonderful perception!" his professor gleaned before Cameron had even come back up for air. "Concise and minimalistic — a whole lot explained in just two simple words, with dozens of implications behind them. Well done, Cameron."

The praise told him all he needed to know about what had just happened, and Cameron felt his neck flush with anxiety. He hadn't done that in front of a whole class before, with the spotlight directly on him, and he definitely, definitely hadn't felt it coming out of him that time. His senses could have easily been dulled from being sick, or maybe something about the virus made his siren song more apparent without the regular volume of his voice to muffle it.

What if his lack of attention meant that most of the time it was just waiting to come out, and his usual waking consciousness had been keeping it in check the whole time? That would mean he was worse off than he thought. Cameron didn't want to think about it.

Someone tapped him on the upper arm, and Cameron turned to his right to see one of his classmates smiling at him as though Cameron were a rockstar and his classmate had won backstage passes from a radio contest.

"Nice job," he crooned softly, squeezing Cameron's arm a little. Cameron tried to school his face and smile back, his lips tight and shut. When he got overwhelmed and averted his gaze, he realized, to his horror, that his charm had reached the entire class.

All eyes were on him, of course, god damn it and et cetera. Each time Cameron looked around, his colleagues would pull a secret admirer and quickly redirect their gazes toward the front of the room. Someone passed him a note that he didn't want to open. The guy sitting next to him would not let go of his arm and Cameron wasn't moving it, too frozen by the weirdness of interacting more than absolutely necessary with someone who was under his accidental love spell.

Throughout the remainder of the seminar, the professor tried to keep her composure and remind the class to focus on the lecture material. It looked like, for the most part, she was trying to remind herself just as much as she was her students. Cameron watched painfully and tried not to cough.

There was less than an hour left to go when his charm first took effect, and once that had dragged by, Cameron hadn't noticed much of a change in the atmosphere. He packed up his things as quickly as he could and bolted from the room before anybody could try to talk to him.

In preparation for the meeting he decided he'd have to have with his professor, Cameron immediately headed for the on campus convenience store. He bought a bottle of honey that cost five times as much as it would have in the grocery store because everything there did, and then he stopped at the cafe to fill a paper cup with hot water. He repeated the routine between classes until he was done for the day. Aside from telling the cashier "hi" and "thank you" as he paid for his supplies, Cameron willed himself to stay quiet in order to preserve his stamina for later. That way, hopefully, he'd be able to avoid making two mistakes in one day.

He just made office hours after rushing to the History building just as the late autumn sun was starting to set. With his lungs still burning from the freezing air, Cameron knocked on his professor's door frame and cleared his throat.

"Hi, Dr. Ingram…?" he said, testing. It turned out that he still didn't have a lot of volume to work with, but his words sounded clear enough.

Dr. Ingram's office wasn't very big, cramped with just a desk and a couple of chairs facing a window that overlooked the courtyard, and a couple of neatly-organized literature shelves stationed above the computer. Dr. Ingram looked up from a stack of papers, then took her glasses off and smiled warmly at him.

"Come in, Cameron," she said. "Have you been sick? You're sounding dreadful."

"I, uh, yeah, sorry. But that's not…" Cameron replied, then cleared his throat again. It was painful but it did the trick. "That's not why I'm here."

"Have a seat, then." Dr. Ingram's voice was bright and welcoming. "My office hours are just about to end, but my next lecture doesn't start for another twenty minutes. I'm very glad it was you who came to see me."

She was still under his spell. She had to be. Cameron was going to have a much harder time than he'd thought.

"Thank you," he said automatically. He sat in the chair across from Dr. Ingram's desk and set his bag down on the floor next to it. "Sorry to catch you so late in the day."

"Oh, that's alright," Dr. Ingram interrupted. She had the kind of eyes that made it always look like she was tired, even just then as they twinkled expectantly. "I was just finishing up grading for your midterms. Your paper got full marks, but I'd still be happy to discuss it with you, if you'd like."

For as much practice as Cameron had confessing to people about how he'd accidentally Siren-charmed them, he had yet to find the process any easier. With peers, for example, he often stammered out frantic apologies and long-winded explanations. But when it happened to strangers, Cameron preferred to evacuate the area immediately so that the consequences of the spell would remain unnoticed and unpracticed, and oftentimes he personally banned himself from returning to the scene of the crime for as long as he could stand it, just in case any of the charm's effects may have lingered.

(That had never happened to Cameron before, but he never wanted to take any chances.)

It wasn't often that his song got directed at an authority figure. Although Cameron's respect for the academic hierarchy continued to dwindle lower the longer he stayed in school, his own moral compass surrounding his powers made the waters so much trickier to navigate.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about…" Cameron struggled and brought his fist to his mouth to cough. Some good all that expensive university store honey was doing him. "Sorry. About your class this morning."

"I had a feeling," Dr. Ingram replied. "You were brilliant today."

"I _did_ only say two—"

"Oh, no, Cameron, not your…"

"Oh no."

"…answer."

Dr. Ingram didn't have to say another word; Cameron reacted right away, before he could even help himself, eager to correct the situation. "Oh my _god_ , I did not— Dr. Ingram, I _swear_ I did not mean to do that. Are you still…?"

"Under your spell? I'm afraid so," Dr. Ingram said. "It _is_ working its way out of my system; it's not nearly as strong now as it was before. You've got quite a powerful voice."

"I'm so sorry," Cameron repeated. The spell still lingering at all was unusual, especially considering that it had reached a whole room full of adults instead of just one person. Cameron's ability having extra influence at all while he was sick, at least in that instance, was not sitting right with him.

"You're absolutely not supposed to put a charm on your professor, during _or_ outside of class. I know you know that," Dr. Ingram recited, though she didn't sound particularly upset.

Naturally.

"I could let you off very easy," she continued, "and give you a zero in participation for the semester, which would lower your grade by fifteen percent."

"Is that what protocol calls for?" Cameron asked. His throat felt dry.

"Yes. But In the past, when something like this has happened," Dr. Ingram told him, "I've simply issued a failing grade."

Cameron had a feeling that she wanted him to react to that, and the room suddenly felt a lot colder, despite Dr. Ingram's artificial fondness for him. Before he could help himself, he asked, "What makes me different?"

"I'm assuming that you have a lot more trouble honing in your abilities while ill. In which case," she said, "you should have stayed home today."

Cameron had trouble controlling his abilities _period_ , but he wasn't about to disclose that to an instructor who professed to be doing him a favor.

"But I'd hate to see a grade like yours go to waste, and I'm gathering that this is your first offense," Dr. Ingram continued. "So you're getting a warning and a decrease, so long as you promise to refrain from using your ability in _any_ of your future classes."

"Thank you," Cameron said. He didn't really know where he was supposed to go with that. "Have anyone else's powers acted up in your classes this semester? I'm just curious."

"Two other students in my afternoon class, actually," Dr. Ingram disclosed. Cameron knew that she probably wouldn't be breaking confidentiality if it weren't for his spell, but he was starting to feel a little more comfortable bending the rules.

He had a feeling that a big part of the reason she was giving Cameron special treatment was because all his power did was make her _like_ him, which was kind of unfair, considering that he'd probably be in for a different punishment if the world had given him the ability to practice levitation or set things on fire. She said herself that university policy didn't call for a failing grade in other cases, especially on a first strike.

"Has anything like this happened to you before?" he tried next.

"In terms of…?"

"Being hit by a Siren," Cameron clarified. The grin he gave her was cut short when he had to cough again, but he sheepishly resumed his expression after emerging back up from the crook of his arm.

"Just once," Dr. Ingram said. "But never by a student."

"So maybe," Cameron proposed, "you could let me off the hook in exchange for the cool new experience I gave you today."

Dr. Ingram laughed, softening. "What odds did you give yourself that that was going to work?"

"Worth a shot."

"Well, you hit your target."

"Seriously?"

Cameron was for sure using the aftereffects of his spell to his advantage that time, but he didn't feel guilty about it. He'd been conditioned to fear and resent his voice for most of his life, and the same was still amplified when he lost control, but at the same time he understood that losing points for something he'd done by accident wasn't exactly fair. Probably.

Maybe he could have taken more responsibility for it, but the university didn't take responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of tuition dollars they were indebting students for, so he considered his conscience clean.

"Consider it a big, big favor," Dr. Ingram said. "But you have to promise to take better care of yourself, or at least take an extra day off so it doesn't happen again, if that is the reason for your ability acting out of turn. No need to run yourself into the ground."

"I will. Yeah. Of course," Cameron vowed, though he wasn't sure if his power being so strong that morning was a fluke or if there really was something to him being sick like Dr. Ingram seemed to think. "Any chance you could do the same for the others?"

"If you'd asked me four hours ago, I might have said yes." Dr. Ingram winked as she put her glasses back on and straightened out a stack of papers. "But as it stands, I'm going to have to ask you to accept my generosity for what it is."

"Sure," Cameron said, though it left a bad taste in his mouth. If he had the skill to do it and lower chances of getting caught, he probably would have gone the extra mile trying to change her mind.

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?" Dr. Ingram asked. Her mood remained unsoured, though Cameron wasn't sure how much longer that would last. "Your midterm essay really was impressive; I thought so when I first graded it late last week."

Cameron believed her, but at that point he was ready to get out of dodge.

"Thanks," he said as he bent down to grab his bag, then situated it over his shoulder. "I shouldn't keep you so soon before your class, though, so. I…"

Thankfully, Dr. Ingram got the message, and Cameron didn't have to explain to her that he was ready to claw his eyes out at the idea of discussing medieval enchantment stock exchanges with her after spending hours on a paper about it earlier that month, especially with an aching chest and the onset of a tension headache. She stood up to shake his hand.

"It's been a pleasure," she said.

"Wow. Strong grip," was all Cameron had to say to that. He choked on the last word and turned away to cough twice into his shoulder. "Sorry. I, uh. Sorry. I don't think I'm contagious anymore."

"I could use a day off, even if you were," Dr. Ingram said. "But a couple of decades in academia does wonders for the immune system."

Cameron broke the handshake and said, "Having tenure must give you antibodies of steel."

"Maybe for the best," Dr. Ingram replied, still smiling as she sat back down at her desk. "I wouldn't be very efficient in giving a lecture if I sounded like you do today."

"I'm glad I'll never have to give a lecture, ever, in my entire life," Cameron said earnestly. "Laryngitis or no laryngitis."

"Your final project in my class _is_ scheduled to be a presentation, Cameron," Dr. Ingram reminded him as he was on his way out the door. Cameron turned around.

"We'll see about that," he said. "I do have an A in the class right now, remember?"

Dr. Ingram laughed. It sounded a little different that time.

"I'll see you on Wednesday morning," she told him in dismissal, "so long as you're feeling better by then."

He would be, Cameron was almost certain, but he wasn't about to make any promises. He felt his hair stand on end as he exited the office, sticky with the static electricity of the dry, oncoming winter air. Nobody looked twice at him until he was well off of campus grounds.


End file.
